This paper was commissioned by ActionAid International as an input to its 5 year external review and international strategy for 2012 to 2016, with the intention to "summarise the most important trends that ActionAid International must respond to and exploit in its next strategy, in order to achieve its mission and vision."

The paper which is a report to ActionAid, not a statement of ActionAid policy is based on a review of a range of futures studies, scenario planning exercises and Outlook reports (see Appendix 1 for the full list of sources consulted), and therefore high priority areas for ActionAid, but that were not well covered by the futures studies, also figure relatively lightly in this report: among these areas are the future of social and the future of the care economy, and the role of the State and consequent future potential of a human rights-based approach.

The core of the paper is a discussion of eight critical uncertainties that will fundamentally shape the context for international development over the next decade. In each case, the paper aims to assess what is known and what remains uncertain, and to identify themes that will be especially important for ActionAid. The paper concludes with ten recommendations (these have been lightly edited from the original version of this paper in order to maximise relevance for civil society organisations and other development actors).